The Iron Writer Challenge #79 Dellani Oakes

And here we are again. Another week, and another TIW challenge. This time, it’s C79, christened the Dellani Oakes Challenge, since it was she who supplied the four elements for this challenge rather than Brian, who supplies the elements usually.

(Oh yes, the Mathew Weaver Challenge is coming soon, too. Stay tuned!)

The back story for this one… I wanted in on the Autumn Open, the second quarterly tournament for the year. Since Jordan scraped ahead of me in C77, I had to win in some other challenge before the tournament (which happens to be on the 25^th of September, in case you wanted to know).

My dilemma: all challenges till then were filled, and the only empty slots available were the ones after the Autumn Tournament. Just as I was about to give up hope, I asked DL Zwissler if she would switch with me for one of her challenges, since she had already been in a few others

Thankfully, she graciously let me step in for her for C79, and so here I am. The elements, as we were given them:

                                    Genetically Enhanced Garden Gnomes

                                                          Camelot

                                                 Halitosis (bad breath)

                                             Stratego (the board game)

On Digging Pits and Falling Into Them

I’ve written about my elder sister more than a couple of times here. When she found out about my blog last week, she asked me to call her Serena, rather than SH, whenever I mention her. Mathew and Serena? (Shrug) Personally, I preferred SH. You know, it’s kind of like I’m shushing her when I talk about her, and that was kind of nice. But well, with progress must come change... sigh.

That done, I guess it’s about time I introduce the brat… ahem, I mean, the other sister. The kid.

For the sake of easy reading, I’m going to call her Zoola. It’s a variation of the nickname Serena came up with way back in the day, and it’s one that would drive her (Zoola) up the wall when she finally gets around to reading this (if ever).

She’s 14, and though she isn’t showing all that much interest in writing, unlike Serena and I, she does have other artistic talents that I don’t. Maybe it’s just that she hasn’t found her voice yet.

Zoola can be sweet when she wants something from you, and a mule when she doesn’t. Your basic kid sister. She’s the youngest, but our parents never let her get spoiled. Close one, that. Growing up with a younger sister isn’t easy. At least with a brother, you can do this... 

... every now and again when authority needs to be established. Not so with sisters. It is so much more complicated with sisters.

The reason for this post, though, is ( obviously) what happened a few weeks ago.

When Thoughts Go Wild and All Comes Out

 Disclaimer: The following blog post contains words and ideas not planned too far ahead before being written down and hastily edited. As such, undiluted rambling and distinctive lack of a fixed topic may be experienced.

Reader discretion is advised.

So you decided to brave it anyway. Thanks, I guess. Your belief in me is my inspiration and all that. Here we go.

Believe it or not, it isn’t always that I start writing with a fixed point in mind when it comes to my blog posts.

Sure, the last few ones found me lucky enough to actually have some sort of a point to stick to. Dragons, the latest form of head banging, roaches… there was a point, and I (more or less, admittedly) stuck to it.

Here, though, not so much. Nope, not a single idea on what I want to write about, and I sit with my hands moving and my fingers dancing and I see these words type themselves onto this page, the keys being pressed repeatedly at a good enough rate to ensure steady rhythm and a smooth flow of words.

The strangest thing about that smooth flow is that I have no idea what I’m about to write next. These words pouring out of me, they are instantaneous and as such have no more than a few fifteen seconds worth of planning before them. With little and no knowledge of what’s in store for both you and me at this point, here’s to buckling up and adjusting scuba masks before delving into the depths of my gibberish.

Here we go.

Research: Ravenous Roaches

It was a research post that I planned on doing today, and it was research post that I am going to do. It’s so nice when you have a set goal and objective in mind, isn’t it?

Well, that cozy feeling didn’t last so long for me. Simple reason, I couldn’t decide on the darn topic for this research post of mine. I did one on dragons last time, and one on crossbows months before that. What could I possibly do this time?

Swords? Not in the mood for sorting through medieval stuff. Spiders? Yeah… maybe later. Definitely later. The Flying Dutchman? That’s coming pretty soon, not just now, though. Stay tuned.

But for this one, I had not a clue what I wanted to do it on.. Then, my muse tossed in its bed pulled the cover up to its chin. Before it drifted off again, it murmured:

"Darned *mumble mumble* roaches... *mumble*"

The light bulb finally lit.

Mu-hue hue hue...

And so, the roach it is.

The Iron Writer Challenge #77 (Grudge #9)

The best part about being an Iron Writer is that most of us in the group who communicate regularly on the Facebook page have this sort of bond of kinship. I know, it does sound strange like that, but hear me out.

Most of us have never met the others in person (me not any, obviously), and we’re from the far flung corners of the earth. Brian Rogers, founder of the group, explicitly made it a rule that there was to be no self-promoting on the page. So, probably or want of something to do, the early Irons started bantering among themselves.

Friendships bloomed, alliances were formed, and rivalries were discovered… and out of those rivalries, the Grudge Match was born.

Basically, it’s a glorified weekly challenge where one Iron trash talked another till the gauntlet gets thrown. And this week, I am in one.

The Day The Anvil Struck the Hammer

It’s been over two years since I started the accounting course that I am in the final stage of right now. Eighteen months into it, I had to start taking classes in the Big City, which is, as you’d know if you’d seen a few of my earlier posts, a few hours away from home sweet home. As I said, I’m in my last stage here, and if all goes well, I’ll be done by the end of this year.

That’s not what this post is about, no. This one has much to do with the busses I take on my weekly commutes. And there have been plenty of those, let me tell you.

You see, whether or not it’s the same route you take every week, every ride has its differences. Sometimes it could be a good trip, and other times, it could be downright awful. But knowing me, you would probably be realizing now that the third option, i.e. ‘most’ times, are, to me, just funny.

 Every bus ride I take to the City has its special moment, and I don’t mean just the ones like these:

...which are hilarious enough in real life, especially when they happen to you (speaking from painful experience, yes). My moments of note include weirder things that have happened, like the time we were attacked by a cloud of grasshoppers, and oh yes, the never to be forgotten Day The Shoe Held Us Hostage.

Of Efforts and Betrayals

There comes the time in the life of a man where he stands before that bathroom mirror and looks at himself.

He examines the face in front of him. He studies what he sees, peers into the reflection, into the image that peers back out at him.

Then he reaches for the shaving cream, grabs the razor, and it begins.

Mythological Research: Devastating Dragons

It’s been a while since my last research post; I wanted to make those kind of posts a regular thing. But stuff happened, and long story short, I wasn’t able to. Well, this is me trying to amend for that, and I’m doing it explosively.

You read the title, and yup, that's right. This one is all about the big, the bad, and the awesome… dragons.

BOO

Smaug is all the rage these days, and you can’t argue his popularity. He’s big, he’s bad, he single claw-dedly (fang-dedly?) drove out every dwarf from their home in the mountain Erebor, and made their pile of gold his personal couch. What’s not to like?

The Hobbit was written almost 80 years ago, and Smaug certainly wasn’t by the last dragon to be written about since then… but neither was it the first. Dragon lore has existed since pretty much ancient times, and out of curiosity and boredom, I went off and researched what I could find online.

When Friends Fall and Ideals Change

Nothing can start a literary piece of art better than sitting down (or in my case, arranging pillows, stretching legs out, adjusting laptop and cracking knuckles, not necessarily in that order) to beginning to write.

And something else that’s more or less equal to that in the same aspect is the occasion when you have something specific in mind you want to write about.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of those rare times, in my case at least.

Today, I talk to you about… how my first ever job interview went.

On Nerves and Novices

Normally, I’d do a little ramble here and there, talk about some vague topic that somehow skews into whatever point that I’m about to try and make that particular day.

Yes, you don’t have to shout, I am aware that ‘try’ happens to be the keyword in above sentence.

Anyway, that’s how I’d normally go about it, if you’ve ever read my previous natterings. This time… well, this time I’m cutting right to the chase.

I’m having an interview tomorrow. There, I said it. 

Of Fireworks and Nostalgic Groans

I was enthusiastic, I was eager to start, and it was in a bout of adrenaline and probably a little more than just a bit of madness that I texted N and asked him how I would go about starting a blog.

It was that, and the internet just happened to be on right then, too. Facebook was boring, no one was on chat, and I couldn’t think of anything to watch on YouTube.

Basically, I had nothing else to do.

N replied, “Try Blogspot.”

I shrugged, “Why not?”

I clicked the mouse, typed, hit enter, and sat back as the tiny circle spun.

I sniffed, and clicked on the blue link: “create an account.”

I scratched my head, shrugged, tapped a beat on the table. This bit I hadn’t thought through.

I made my decision, roughly half a minute later. I leaned over and typed, “M… A… T…”

 Six months and two weeks later, and here I am.

The Iron Writer Challenge #73 Summer Tournament Final

You know me as an author. Mostly comical, sometimes serious, but always… an author.

I don’t dabble much in poetry for a few reasons. One, I have this strange feeling that poems should, somehow, someway, rhyme. I have no idea why I sometimes see a jumble of words that don’t rhyme being referred to as ‘poetry'. Just correct me if I’m wrong, thanks.

And the second reason… I’m no poet, fair and simple. Thank you very much.

Why bring poetry in all of a sudden? I’m getting there.

Thanks to the unexpected win I pulled over the heads of fellow Irons Dani J Caile, Jordan Bell and Suzann Smith in The Iron Writer Summer Tournament Preliminary, I was pulled into the Final. Ergo, I was given yet another Challenge to do, one that I never asked for. Sigh.

As always, the elements were four… but this time, it seemed a bit too easy. Judge for yourselves. They were:

A lost key

A travel brochure

A thermostat

Dessert topping

  

To Throw A Slacker on a Deadline

I’m a really lazy dude.

I’ve never tried hiding it. I talk about it all the time. I write blog posts on my laziness. You ask me, and I’ll tell you up straight; yes, I’m lazy.

What’s with the up-front honesty, you ask? I’ll tell you. It isn’t about being honest. Rather, it’s just a bit of me adhering to my principles.

See, I could protest otherwise. I could say, “No, I’m one of the most hardworking people you have ever met, blahdey blahdey blah.” The thing is, then I would require proof of my hard work, which would be more hard work in itself to find, (because there probably isn’t much. I’m too lazy to check)

I’d also have to protest and argue my point, and, well, it’s all really a load of unnecessary work. So, in the interests of being lazy… the right thing to do would be to admit it and get back to doing nothing.

So this is me, cutting to the chase. Hello, I’m lazy.

The Iron Writer Challenge #72

With a great amount of luck, I somehow pulled through and managed to win the preliminary round on the Iron Writer tournament. (this was my story…)

All you guys who voted for me, thank you ever so much. The popular vote helped save me back there, and I owe it all to you.

You would think I’d be happy on this victory. At first, oh yeah. Ego stoked and everything. But then, along came the news that I had qualified to the next and final round… and that would be against the other three winners of the same preliminary.

So, the prize for winning… was another challenge. Oh, great. The good news was that this second round would be held two weeks after the round I just completed; which gave me a week off while another unrelated challenge took place.

see?

Then came the call… and I remembered that I had signed up for that middle challenge, too.

The Iron Writer Challenge #71

  

When I said I was feeling lazy, I didn’t expect to take an almost two week break from posting. But somehow, that’s exactly what happened.

I just wasn’t in the mood to write, and so I didn’t.

  

But I had to come back to this thing eventually; and so here I am, vacation sadly over. Sigh.

And once again, on the Iron Writer.

Thanks to my first ever story, the one I managed to win, I apparently got into the quarterly tournament. It's big deal here, since it happens only once in every three months. You know how in the regular weekly tournament, there are just four writers with the four elements? Well, in this, there are sixteen writers with the same set of elements.

Of Swings and Solutions

You would probably recall that I talk about how I try to post within my three day cycle; keeping a regular schedule shouldn’t be a problem, because ideas are not hard to come by for me, and I also happened to have a list of topics ready to choose from.

Strangely enough, with all those fancy rules of mine, you would also notice the delays between my posts of late. Odd for me to call attention to it myself, I know… but I’m blowing the whistle. Yes, on myself.

Three day cycles turning into four, and five… I haven’t been up to my usual standard, obviously. And this worries me, because I have the annoying tendency to not be able to stick to things for very long before getting tired of them.

I managed to get bored of movies and serials for about a month. True story. This happened to be the same month in which I did not have any new books to read, either. Needless to say, that was one awful time in my life. (shudder)

Back to the point…. I am slacking. I know exactly why I am. And worse, I know exactly what I can do to get over it.

Why am I not writing? Simple reason….

I don’t want to.

On The Parents of Progress

The saying goes that necessity is the mother of all invention. Sure, maybe. It certainly is probable enough, if you just take it in, nod, and then continue scrolling down Facebook (which is where you probably saw the quote, in meme format) like I do most of the time.

But if you gave it any amount of thought, you’d probably see that it can’t be all there is. There has got to be more to invention than simply necessity. Boredom? Tools and parts lying around? Wife mad at you and chased you out to the garage, with nothing else to do till morning?

To say that necessity alone is the source of invention would be like saying that the patty alone makes a good burger. Which, as you know quite well, it does not.

 

I rest my case

Then, you ask, what metaphorical element would the bun represent, supposing we continue with that metaphorical burger? (Ignore the condiments, they're the smaller stuff, like that night in the garage). Well, to be blunt, I believe that a big, very big, part of invention stems from…. wait for it….. laziness.

The Tale of The Cat and The Monkey - When TIWs Gather

And it happened again.

Ever since the shenanigans that Dani J Caile and I got up to on account of Neal’s goatee, I have instinctively been looking out for a time when Dani and I could do a similar bit of creative dueling once more. Apparently, he’s been looking out for the same thing, but neither of us seemed to find a convenient enough avenue to start it off.

Until the other day, when Dani decided to take matters into his own hands.

Everything worthwhile needs something good to kick it off; in this case, the kick off happened innocently enough. All I did was share a picture on my timeline. This one, to be exact.

A few hours later, I saw this. Innocent enough, you would say. Not to him, and not to me.

Of course, I did what you would expect me to have done. The gauntlet had been thrown. The time had come once more. So I drew my Sword of Creativity and plunged in. 

The Iron Writer Challenge #68

Since joining the Iron Writers, my newly blossoming career took a turn for the better in a way I had never fully expected.

Hanging out with those experienced writers is a truly amazing experience; having them talk and treat you like an equal, being able to ask them for advice, and poking at each other in our regular banter, each of them backing you and cheering you up when you feel down… I feel truly blessed to be a part of this group.

Of course, there was a catch to all that. I still had to take part in some of those beastly weekly challenges… and I remain as useless at flash fiction as a plumber at aeronautical engineering. But if I’m to stick around at The Iron Writer, sooner or later I will have to spar in another challenge, and another.  The only way I’m going to manage to survive… would be to (ugh) practice.

So, like the fool that I usually am, I signed up for another challenge, and a few more down the road as well. What was I thinking, you ask? I probably wasn’t thinking anything; if I was, I wouldn’t have done this to myself.

So here we are again, and its Challenge 68… my second Iron Writer bout. And this time, I was up against even more experienced adversaries.

An Arr-gument of Sorts

You all know that I’m in the middle (or, to be more accurate, near the beginning) of The Legend of Charzahn. I really need to pick up my pace, but that’s beside the point of today’s ramble.

As any writer should know, I’m taking pains to get my story done. The thinking, the writing, the eventual editing, then the scrapping of probably over half of my work, then the re-edits, and so on.

And that’s just one of my books. I have more in the back of my head. Way, waaaay more.

What do I hope to gain out of all this?

Well, a feeling of accomplishment, definitely. A modest degree of popularity, and recognition for my developing talents. Good friends who understand my efforts. And a rabid fan following screaming my name as I step out of the limousine would be nice, too. Hey, I’m just saying, I wouldn’t turn it down if I ever got offered it, alright?

Then there’s this:

No arguing with wanting that, is there?

And, well, let’s not beat around the bush. I also happen to want to make money.

Who doesn’t?